


A Dreamer, Just Like You

by CampySpaceSlime



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M, Trans!Quentin, cis!eliot, the quintessential mosaic fic, you know the queliot rite of passage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 06:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18493153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampySpaceSlime/pseuds/CampySpaceSlime
Summary: It's been a year. A year of struggling to capture the beauty of all life. A year of loneliness and longing. A year of pining.





	A Dreamer, Just Like You

“Hey… I –ˮ

            Quentin wasn’t sure exactly what made him do it: the sting of the Fillorian brandy in his throat, or the warmth of the summer night, or Eliot’s own body heat so close to him. But whatever the cause, it was one of those blissful moments when he didn’t think, when he didn’t allow the Sisyphean entity of his anxiety to drive his thoughts. Instead, he simply acted on something like instinct.

            Eliot tasted like this brandy that would never quite taste the same as anything on earth, and that spice that was solely him, something almost soft as cinnamon, almost punishing as cayenne, that Quentin remembered from that ill-fated night that seemed to have happened several lifetimes ago.

            The kiss was quick. Furtive. A question that Quentin wasn’t sure he knew the answer to. A year they’d been at this already, days marked only by the shaping and reshaping of geometric patterns, and their little cottage had begun to feel so big with just the two of them in it, beds in separate rooms, until loneliness and longing felt like yawning chasms inside Quentin, and he was left navigating the choppy waters between them, like Odysseus on a quest between the two sea monsters.

            He couldn’t deny the easy affection Eliot had with him, something akin to what he had with Margo. There was a casual intimacy of little touches, and even the occasional peck on his forehead, and once, on a night as warm and peaceful as this one, Eliot had coaxed Quentin’s head into his lap and ran his fingers through his long hair until it felt like there could be nothing hidden between them. But, Quentin had reassured himself time and time again, that was just Eliot. He was like that with everyone.

            More and more as the days dragged on and the mosaic stubbornly refused to reveal its secrets, Quentin found himself thinking about that other night between them: high on an influx of emotions and too much cheap wine. He would watch Eliot, hard at work laying tiles, or fussing around in their garden, or negotiating with Arielle to get them some of this Fillorian booze, and he couldn’t help but remember the feel of his body and the taste of Eliot’s cum on his tongue.

             The cottage had begun to feel stifling then and huge all at once. His room shared a wall with Eliot’s and at the same time that wall felt thin as cardboard, it also felt like the membrane separating two different dimensions. In the dead of night with his heart pounding in his chest and fingers exploring himself, Quentin thought about how close they were, how Eliot was sure to hear the hitch in his breathing. If he did, if he heard any of Quentin’s desperate releases, he never let on. Every day that crawled toward this year mark, it felt as if they were both trying out steps to this dangerous dance, never quite giving in to the soft familiarity of their lives together, but never quite taking it off the table either.

            Somewhere in the middle of the year, when the novelty of having magic back and being in Fillory had worn off and there seemed to be nothing but bitter frustration to show for every renewed attempt at the mosaic, Quentin began to miss their other friends. He knew some days, when Eliot would turn cold and despondent, that he was missing Margo too, and, to be honest, Quentin wished Margo was here. Her headstrong strength would surely be able to crack this puzzle if, by nothing else, at least by sheer determination. But Quentin himself could really get drawn into the dark core of himself when he started to think about Julia. He missed her in the way he missed his own childhood, to the point where she felt like something deep inside him, a part of himself that had somehow suffered a botched exorcism.

            Sweet, stubborn, faithful Julia. She had been so excited to come to Fillory with him that first time. She had been so delighted to show him the tiny bit of magic she’d been able to muster when no one else could manage even that, and how familiar that whole scene had seemed compared to when she came to him, desperate to be let back in to Brakebills, a hasty, crude spell on her fingertips. She would have been so excited to be in Fillory now, to feel the presence of magic at full force again.

            It was her birthday when Quentin realized he wanted her there for more selfish reasons than that. They always used to talk about anything. That had been what hurt the most about everything that had happened between them so long ago: that they started keeping secrets from each other. But their relationship had shifted now, and though it would never be what it once was, they could finally _talk_ to each other again. And Quentin desperately needed someone to talk to.

            “I think I’m falling in love,” he would have told her if there had been a third room in the cottage, a third hero on the quest.

            And she would have smiled then, her eyes gleaming mischievously. “Aren’t you always?” she would have said.

            And then he would tell her all about the way the sun creeped along Eliot’s body as the day stretched long and unbearable, both of them hunched over tiles and designs that always seemed to look the same. He would have told her about the fine wrinkle that curved Eliot’s brow when he was thinking hard. And the certain loud timbre his laugh took on anytime Quentin said something particularly clever. He would tell her how Eliot liked his eggs cooked and how he always said “good morning” even when he was hung over, and how, on summer nights, remembering the harsh lessons from Brakebills South, Eliot would coax the blinking fireflies out of the trees and make them land in a crown of flashing lights on Quentin’s head and he would call him “King Quentin” like it was a secret joke and smile. And Quentin would have told her about the way he could never seem to think straight when Eliot sat beside him, nothing but long legs. Or maybe he would tell her about how he felt _seen_ for the first time ever when, unprompted, Eliot had told him that he understood his mad draw toward Fillory and that, it had started when he was High King and now it had grown into something bright and beautiful, but Eliot felt it too.

            After he would have told her all those things, Julia would say something profound and insightful and everything would make sense again.

            As it stood, however, without Julia’s wisdom, Quentin felt like the fool he had been made out to be, tripping obliviously toward the cliff edge. He wanted to talk to Eliot, to make sense of things, but he could never think of the words and he could never get any sound out from behind the terrible lump of anxiety that clogged his throat and weighed heavy on his heart. But there were so many feelings in him, feelings so big and bright and weighty, when they perched on his chest, he thought for sure that he would be crushed beneath them. He thought for sure that he must look like one of those clear plastic anatomy dolls with all the squishy bits of his guts on display if only Eliot were to _look_.

            In this quivering state of vulnerability, he found himself emboldened by the alcohol and the warm night and the closeness of Eliot’s breath and the twisting, wriggling of magic in the Fillorian air, and the same driving force to ritualize that marked their coronation. A year they’d been at this. A year they’d spent together far, separated by time and distance, from anyone and anything else they knew. Anything but each other.

            So Quentin kissed him. A chaste little thing, an interruption with feeling to whatever it was he had been trying to say. And then Eliot had smiled and his hand sought Quentin’s on top of the quilt they’d spread over the mosaic, and the kiss deepened, and Quentin’s whole body filled with the undeniable knowledge that Eliot, whose charisma could command an entire room, who ruled over an entire nation, who demanded the space he took up, was kissing him as hard and unyielding as Quentin wanted.

            It was a familiar yet foreign sensation: Eliot kissing him. Quentin had turned that fateful night so long ago over and over in his mind, trying to squeeze every last drop out of the fuzzy memory. He had barely felt like himself then, with his emotions so close to the surface, as if he was nothing but a thin layer of skin over this limitless cavern of emotion. It didn’t help that he had been drunk too, so that his fingertips were numb and everything seemed funny and inconsequential. How could there be anything wrong with seeking solace in his two best friends, hot and alive on the bed beside him? When nothing mattered but filling this hole in his psyche that his bottled up essence had reminded him of? And there was Margo talking about Fillory and magic and belief as if his faith was solid enough to save them. How had she expected him to hold onto it when nothing was making sense anymore? Plover was a monster, magic came from pain, and there was nothing whimsical about the Fillory made real; oh, how he had needed something tangible back then! And Margo had seen right through him, into that gaping void inside him and the intimacy had terrified him to the point that the only way to exorcise it was to manifest it, make it physical, give it a name, slip inside Margo until her little gasps woke up Eliot. Climb into Eliot’s lap. Feel small and physical again.

            The quilt was smooth when Eliot laid him down on it, sprawling so gracefully beside him, his legs so goddamn long, and pushing Quentin’s hair back to kiss at his neck, his jaw, his ear. Neither of them had shaved that day and the coarse scratch made Quentin feel human and present in a way he’d been struggling toward. When Eliot kissed him, his lips scorched his skin and without thinking about it, he groaned, reverberating into the cricket-filled night.

            “Oh, I missed that,” Eliot whispered against the pounding pulse in Quentin’s throat. He tongued the spot. “I forgot how loud you are.”

            A hot blush spread over Quentin’s face and he turned his head away from Eliot’s questing tongue. Embarrassment felt like a drug when it hit his system. Eliot was so cool and collected all the time and even though Quentin had seen him when the façade fell and the start of something vulnerable and true could be glimpsed, it still felt as though Eliot always had everything and everyone under his control. There was a reason he had the blood of a high king while Quentin had nothing but A positive.

                    “I…” Quentin started as Eliot began to suck a bruise into his collarbone. “I think we need to talk.”

            “Do we?” Eliot said, smiling against Quentin’s skin. “Or can I just make you make that sound again, Sir Quentin the Chronic-Overthinker?”

            “No, really,” Quentin began again, but Eliot sought out his mouth before he could continue, sucking his bottom lip and kissing him breathless. Quentin surged into it, sitting back up so he could kiss Eliot as deep as he wanted to, seeking after the spicy flavor of him and carding his fingers through his curls. Eliot had really let his hair get long to the point that he was hardly recognizable as the confident second year Quentin had first met all that time ago. The softly flowing clothes that the Fillorians favored suited him much better than the starched dress shirts and tweed he’d modeled on earth. There, his clothes always felt to Quentin like armor, keeping the world at bay and creating a persona within which the core of him could remain protected and untouched. Here in Fillory, especially now that there was no kingdom relying on him, where there was no one but Quentin and Arielle and some locals occasionally, something ice cold in Eliot had cracked open, letting out some sunlight and fresh air.

            And when Quentin kissed him, he could practically taste it on Eliot’s lips: the freedom.

            For most of his life, he’d relied on the Chatwins and Fillory as a lifeline against the rising tide of brokenness and helpless agony within him. He kept returning to it as a source of comfort so familiar and worn, it felt more like home more than reality did. The Fillory that truly existed, the one that was outside his head, couldn’t live up to every expectation he had put into it, but there was still something in the air here, a slightly different flavor to the magic, that made him feel like he had been emptied out of all the stuff inside him that could never seem to be put right. Like everything, minor to major, was mended. Here, practically alone with Eliot, with magic alive and at full strength at every moment, here in Fillory, he somehow managed to forget about the Beast and Reynard and Ember and Alice burned away to nothing but pure magical energy and his dad’s cancer and even the quest for magic itself. Solving the mosaic felt incredibly important but as the days marched on, filled with Eliot and magic, the task became all but divorced from its original purpose.

            There was something in Eliot of the primal Fillory. The Fillory that existed before the Beast, the Fillory that Quentin had so long disappeared into. There were times here, in this place, that Eliot felt more like Fillory than Fillory did.

            It made Quentin want to crack his own ribs open and let himself out fully.

            Quentin pulled back from their kiss, panting. If he didn’t stop now, he never would. He would get lost in kissing Eliot and he would never come up again, never be strong enough again.

            “Eliot,” Quentin gasped. The alcohol was still heating his cheeks and making a snake of boldness uncoil in his guts. “I know you’ll say that I’m overthinking, but we need to talk. If this goes any further, and I want it to, god, I want it to, I have to tell you.”

            Eliot stopped pawing at Quentin and sat back on his heels, brow furrowed, suddenly serious. “Ok,” he said. “But can I just say that nothing you tell me is gonna make me not want to fuck you right now? Unless you regularly kick puppies or something.”

            Quentin knew Eliot enough to know the humor was a deflection and, undeterred, he met Eliot’s brown eyes.

            “So, ok, I know it’s uncomfortable cause we never really talked about it and, like, I’m over it now so I don’t want you to think that I’m bringing it up now cause I’m not, over it, that is,” Quentin said. He glanced away from Eliot’s gaze and swallowed. “But that night, I know we were both drunk and out of it, but you passed out beforehand and we didn’t actually go all the way, when we…”

            “What do you mean ‘all the way’?” Eliot asked. There was an impish glint in his eyes when Quentin searched his face. He blushed, knowing that Eliot just wanted him to say something more explicit.

            “I mean,” Quentin went on, “that I just sucked your dick and then you passed out again.” He didn’t mean to, but the words came out a little staccato, almost challenging. This conversation was awkward enough and Eliot didn’t seem to want to make it any less so. Eliot frowned but he didn’t say anything.

            “I…” Quentin started. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean it like that. Just... ok. I have a secret, but it’s not like a bad thing. It’s just a thing. A neutral thing. A ‘I can’t change it so why bother?’ thing. Alice knows about it and so does Margo cause of that night and maybe Penny? Cause he was my roommate and was also not all that scrupulous about staying out of my head. But I never told anyone else at Brakebills cause I just wanted to completely start over, you know?”

            “I get that, Q,” Eliot said quietly. “You know I do.”

            “Yea, ok,” Quentin replied, emboldened once more. He swallowed again and wished he had drunk even more. “Um, so, I’m not like the other guys you’ve slept with.”

            Eliot chuckled. “Yea. I’d say so.”

            “No, listen,” Quentin said, all the words he wanted to say jumbling up in his throat. He pushed a stray lock of hair that had fallen out of his bun behind his ear. “My body is different. I.. Um, so, I’m trans.” He dropped his gaze again. “And I get if that changes things, but I really, you know, kind of like you and I would really enjoy, um, you know, having sex? With you? If you want to?” He looked up again and Eliot was grinning.

            “Oh ho ho, would you?” Eliot chuckled. He leaned forward and kissed Quentin on the forehead, a move that was becoming more and more familiar. He pulled back to search Quentin’s eyes and his smile became softer. “Quentin Coldwater, you never cease to amaze me with your stunning ability to make mountains out of molehills and make sweeping assumptions about the kind of men I’ve been with.” Eliot grabbed hold of Quentin’s chin and pushed it up until they were looking into each other’s eyes. “Maybe it’s this horrible brandy we’ve been forced to drink or maybe it’s that adorable manbun you’re sporting or maybe it’s the fact that you are the most genuine person I have ever met but I don’t think all the gods of all the worlds could stop me from wanting to fuck you right now.” Still holding his chin, Eliot kissed him. Once. Twice. Quick little pecks that left Quentin craving more. “You just have to tell me what’s good for you, ok? What you like?”

            “I think I can manage that,” Quentin said. With a lower voice, he added, “so is it ok if I say I want you to kiss me again?”

            Eliot brought his free hand up to cup the back of Quentin’s head and guided him back to his lips. This kiss was much less teasing than the last, Eliot’s tongue slipping into Quentin’s mouth, and Quentin found himself melting into it. A full-body shiver went through him, heating him from his center into his extremities. There was still something embarrassed inside him. Embarrassed that he always had to have this conversation and even slightly angry at himself for thinking that Eliot would spurn him, even though Alice and Margo never had. There was something of shame in him too, shame that his body wasn’t quite what he wanted it to be, and despite what Eliot had said, Quentin was sure he would have preferred a different configuration too.

            In the grand scheme of things, Quentin had really come quite a long way in terms of slipping easily into the shape of his body. Even at the start of his life at Brakebills, he’d been more concerned with contorting himself to hide his body and growing his hair as a curtain to hide his face behind, than he’d been much concerned with anything else. Now, his body was just a thing that existed and its value didn’t reside in its sex, perceived or otherwise. His body kept him alive and allowed him to _feel_ so much. His hands, that he always thought were so feminine, allowed him to cast spells. His legs, so much shorter than Eliot’s or Penny’s, allowed him to traverse all the nooks and crannies of Fillory, from Chatwin’s Torrent to the Castle Whitespire. And his lips, which he spent hours gazing in mirrors agonizing over their womanly shapes, could now be kissed so thoroughly by Eliot.

            Without breaking their kiss, Quentin brought his hand up to Eliot’s exposed throat, moving along all the skin left bare from the opened buttons of his shirt. He started to try to undo more of them, to reveal more of Eliot’s warm flesh, but, chuckling, Eliot pushed away from him. He smiled at Quentin’s chagrined expression and his glistening wet, well-kissed lips, and started to undo the buttons himself.

            “Do you think we should move inside?” he asked as he nonchalantly shrugged out of his shirt. “In case any neighbors get nosey?”

            “No,” Quentin replied, “I want you. Here.” He, not very gracefully, started to pull his own t-shirt up and over his head. “The quest is the beauty of all life, right? And what’s more beautiful than you, naked?”

            “Touché, Coldwater,” Eliot said, smiling, looking for all the world immovable, but even in the lantern festooned darkness, Quentin could see the faintest twinge of blush to his cheeks. “Maybe you’ll have to try reproducing my likeness in the mosaic tiles tomorrow. Simplest quest ever.”

            Eliot tossed his shirt and started to undo his pants as Quentin finally managed to get his own shirt all the way off. For a brief moment, he started to feel ashamed of his scars, especially when he looked at Eliot’s chest, smooth and unblemished under the dark coarse hair. But he soon got distracted by the quick, hungry glances Eliot kept giving him as he wiggled out of his pants, in a way that was almost clumsy, his legs seeming to go everywhere.

            Quentin’s heart quickened to see Eliot almost naked. He leaned forward to kiss him again, relishing the way their chests slotted together so Eliot’s body heat washed over him. Eliot kissed like he had all the time in the world, as if time was stretched long and thin like taffy and there was nothing for it but to savor it. He kissed like he had hours to tear Quentin apart, unraveling everything about him and inspecting every little speck in turn. His hands kept seeking out Quentin’s, or cupping his head to deepen the kiss, or absentmindedly running over Quentin’s chest.

            Quentin hardly knew what to do with his own. He just knew that he wanted to touch Eliot, all over and everywhere at once. He wanted to know every inch of him and know exactly how those inches felt under his fingertips. He wanted to know and to feel all of the magic that bubbled up within Eliot.

            Gasping for breath against Eliot’s lips, he took a moment to undo the clasp of his jeans. He felt like a livewire, all exposed and sparking. Wet desire pooled between his legs and he felt an aching bitterness with every moment Eliot was not inside him. He kicked off his pants and without much thought about it, kicked out of his briefs too. He knew Eliot was watching him, inspecting him, and a small voice within him had the presence of mind to be nervous at the scrutiny, but mostly he just felt a mounting desperation.

            Here he was, naked, on a Fillorian summer night, the frustratingly unsolvable hotbed of this quest to save magic under him, the quilt they’d laid out hours before bunching around his bare ass, and here he was, dripping with need, and for once in his life the anxiety, the crack in the cement of his brain that let overthinking intrusive thoughts come oozing out of, felt almost tolerable. He was aware that he _should_ feel self-conscious, that the little alcohol he had actually drunk was starting to wear off, burned away by his own inner heat, but it all felt far away. He was disconnected from all that, as far away from it as he was from the friends he’s left in another time. Instead, there was nothing in him but Eliot and burning desire and a need to get closer to him. There was nothing in Quentin but a need to expose himself, body and soul, to Eliot and have that desire be mirrored. In one way or another, Quentin’s partners had always found him wanting but it was as if Eliot could finally see _him,_ the him he was under and in spite of all his flaws and broken bits. It was as if Eliot’s gaze could flay him to the bone and everything else, the armor and toughened skin, could just fall away.

            “You’re beautiful, you know,” Eliot said, looking over at Quentin, his face unreadable but voice thick with some kind of emotion. “And you know I don’t say shit like that lightly.” He grinned then, as if the sudden seriousness had been a burden and he was happy to be rid of it. He sobered up quickly though, caressing Quentin’s cheek and forcing him to look deep into Eliot’s dark eyes, glowing in the candle light. “Quentin Coldwater, you are the most beautiful human being I have ever had the uncanny grace to get to know.”

            “I bet you say that to all of the boys that get naked for you,” Quentin said, blushing and trying to look away. But Eliot held him firm.

            “You wound me,” he said, smiling again. “How dare you suggest that I throw my prettiest compliments out for just anyone. Pearls before swine and all that. No no no.” Here, he tapped Quentin on the chest in quick succession. “That won’t do, my passionately nerdy friend.” He let his hand ghost over Quentin’s nipples and couldn’t hide the interest that sparked in his eyes when Quentin shivered. “Do you remember our coronation? When everything was tits up and we thought we weren’t gonna make it another day cause the Beast had some personal vendetta against us?”

            “Of course I remember,” Quentin replied, but it ended on a sigh as Eliot’s hands slowly dipped lower.

            “You know what you did?” Eliot asked, practically whispering as he cupped a hand over Quentin’s vulva.

            “What?” Quentin breathed, his eyelids fluttering closed.

            “You took a minute to make us feel human again,” Eliot said. “We thought we were gonna die and you made us pause to play dress up and say nice things to each other and you looked at me like I was one of your Fillory books and you were so hopeful and so, I don’t know, eager, and I suddenly felt like we, like I, had a chance. A chance to live and to be happy. And, at that moment, I felt like I started to see things like you see them. Like the world is enchanted. Not just in Fillory but everywhere.” Eliot moved again so he could grab both sides of Quentin’s face and bring their lips together. “You know, I might just be a little drunk, but I think, I think I realized, at that moment, that you were gonna save us all and I was never gonna love anyone else in quite the same way that I loved you. And we had been so mad at each other before that, all of us, mad at our weaknesses and each other’s bullshit, and then suddenly, we were all in love.” Eliot paused just long enough to kiss Quentin again.

            “Do you get that? What I’m saying?” Eliot went on. “We ran all those probability spells with all that death and then you told us to focus on the white light. I ate Josh’s fucked up carrots and betrayed _everyone_ and you still crowned me anyway.” He grabbed Quentin around the shoulders and dragged him into a tight hug that felt heavy and all-encompassing like a weighted blanket of the soul around his entire body. “Quentin, you are the most beautiful human being and that’s that.”

            Quentin wanted to say something sharp and decimating, something self-deprecating, but he found that he couldn’t. He just held onto Eliot, wanting so many things all at once, things that felt massive and unnamable and wonderfully terrible and terribly wonderful all at once. He dug his blunt fingernails into Eliot’s back hard enough that he was sure it probably hurt but Eliot didn’t let go.

            “Eliot,” Quentin started to whisper his name, over and over. “Eliot Eliot Eliot.” He was so much shorter than him, so the hug brought his face into Eliot’s collarbone. He kissed it, wanting so much to be able to say something, anything, but feeling like he was barely holding on and everything solid was falling out from beneath him. He kissed Eliot’s skin again, chaste but searing. So many emotions stirring in him left him feeling weak and unmoored. He kissed again and again and then started to open his mouth against Eliot, tasting the salt of his sweat, listening to the sound of his quickening breath and the night sounds of the forest around them.

            Quentin tilted his head back until he could kiss along Eliot’s jawline, nipping at his ear. Eliot sighed and his grip loosened so Quentin could maneuver out of the hug and push Eliot down onto the quilt. When Quentin reached for the band of his briefs, Eliot’s eyebrows shot up.

            “I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now,” Quentin admitted, just as shocked with his bravery as Eliot was. He decided to run with it though and coaxed Eliot to lift his hips so he could pull his underwear off him. His dick sprang free and conscious always of where it was, Quentin straddled Eliot, feeling Eliot’s cock trapped in the crook of Quentin’s thighs, so very close to the heat of him. He leaned forward, trapping it against him, pushing so it slid the length of his vulva, until it rubbed against Quentin’s own hard dick. When it did, he whimpered, a quick shot of pleasure moving up his spine and breaking open in his head. Eliot hissed as Quentin continued to rub himself against him, bumping their cocks together.

            “I could… cum just doing this,” Quentin said, breathless. He shuddered at another spike of pleasure, tensing as it tore through his body. “But I want to cum on you. I wanna cum on your dick.”

            Despite the helpless, hungry way Eliot was looking at him and how he mindlessly gave futile bucks of his hips, he grinned then, nonchalant and in control. “Far be it from me,” he said, “to refuse the wishes of a man such as yourself.” He scrubbed his hands up and down Quentin’s arms. “You know that I want nothing more than to make you happy. There is not a selfish bone in my body.”

            “Good,” Quentin replied on a groan. He grabbed Eliot’s dick and guided it across his length and then shifted back so he could bring the tip up to his opening. He was soaking by now and felt it running down his inner thigh, anticipation and this massive stronghold of craving and a little bit of something like fear, mixing and churning in him, tensing his muscles and making him feel unbearably desperate.

            He sank slowly, panting with every new centimeter, onto Eliot’s cock, letting out a wheezing moan when he bottomed out. Quentin was so wet, it oozed down Eliot’s cock and pooled in his pubes. Thighs quivering, Quentin used his knees to push himself back up, another slow drag along Eliot’s length, before he slid back down again. Eliot was big and filled him up so well, reaching deep into him. And anytime Quentin moved, a stab of sensation overtook his own cock, spreading through his whole body.

            “God,” Eliot gasped. “You feel so good. You’re so wet.”

            When Quentin looked down at him, Eliot was looking at the place where their bodies were joined, watching Quentin ride his cock, Eliot’s lips parted and glistening. Quentin put his hands on Eliot’s chest for leverage and moved faster, riding Eliot harder, making his own dick twitch and jump in his folds.

            Quentin moaned and whimpered, his heart pounding, his breathing hot and gasping. Sweat covered his body and matted in his hair, the bun starting to fall apart as locks escaped and stuck to his forehead. The summer air felt so hot and nearly oppressive against him, but he could barely focus on it as he became lost in the sensation as Eliot started to lift his hips to meet Quentin’s thrusts.

            With each upthrust, Eliot knocked against Quentin’s dick, sending shivers of rapture ricocheting up through him from the bundle of nerves there. Involuntarily, Quentin bent backwards, his whole body stiffening as he felt melted down into a single point. There was nothing else to him, nothing to overthink about, no friends on earth, no quest, no brain cancer, no ultimate disappointments. There was only Eliot and the broad expanse of his body and there was only the core of Quentin left, everything else emptied out, until it felt like there was a tower in his brain, the primal line and point before the Big Bang, the cosmos so compact and tight and hot and dense and about to burst.

            “Oh god,” Quentin whined. His voice was ragged and he realized he’d been keening nearly without stop for a while now, wordless sounds. But now he was praying and saying “fuck” and saying “Eliot” with an almost divine repetition. “You make me feel so good. You’re gonna make me –ˮ

            Before he could finish, he felt Eliot tense and his cock twitch within him. Eliot groaned, something like surprise on his face, as Quentin felt him splatter his insides with his release. The warm, full, wet feeling was too much and Quentin spiraled, lost, into the sunburst building in the back of his head. He squealed something loud and unholy and embarrassing as his muscles spasmed and clutched at Eliot and his thighs quivered on either side of him.

            He rode Eliot a few moments longer until they both started hissing at the over-stimulation and then he pushed himself off of him, coming back down into his body, and having the presence of mind again to blush at his bold wantonness. He laid down on the quilt next to Eliot, feeling spunk and slick slowly oozing down his leg and tried to hide under an arm slung over his forehead. The sweat started to cool on his skin and for a while, the only sound was the crickets.

            He heard rather than saw Eliot sit up and reach for the bottle of Fillorian brandy, taking a gulp from it instead of pouring himself a glass. This moment, this night, this anniversary seemed to have that same kind of ritual importance and Quentin had no idea if Eliot understood that. He was uncharacteristically quiet and Quentin couldn’t tell if it was a blissful silence or a pensive one. He was too frightened to ask.

            Instead, he sat up as well and with a wry smile, grabbed the bottle from Eliot and took his own swig. It burned like communion wine and cough syrup. He looked at Eliot, his hair disheveled, and cock still semi-hard and damp, the flames of the candles dancing on his face, and he felt gripped by love and fear and a simmering brand of nervousness.

            “Are you –ˮ Quentin started, but Eliot interrupted him.

            “Has anyone ever told you how unbelievably loud you are?” he asked, smiling broadly, the mischievous glint back in his eyes. “And how fucking hot that is?”

            Quentin began blushing again. “It’s not annoying?” he whispered.

            Eliot reached for his hand and held it between both of his.

            “God no,” he said. “I usually last a little longer than that, but the noises…” He let Quentin go and flopped back down on the quilt, legs sprawled. “Why haven’t we done this more often? And sooner? We could have been doing this for a _year_. Who gives a shit about this goddamn puzzle anyway?”

            Quentin sunk down next to him, their heads mere inches apart. He laughed at Eliot in a tone that was almost guilty and gazed up at the canopy of stars above them. Fillory’s twin moons lit up the sky and bathed the forest around them in silver light.

            They lay in silence for a long while again, nothing but breathing softly so close to each other that space seemed inconsequential. Quentin submerged himself into his own emotions, so deep he was drowning, but it was a special kind of drowning, a soft, sweet loss of air. He laid there beside Eliot, feeling his body heat and the soreness within him that left him marked as Eliot’s, looking up at the night canvass, feeling like a tarot card pierced by ten swords of love unbearable, that made a clenched fist in his stomach. He could barely stand it.

            As they lay there, he kept thinking about lying under a table, looking up at a child’s crude map of Fillory, or looking up, shivering, at the stars over Antarctica, fox hormones still pumping through his body, and knowing love, finally, as the name of that bottomless chasm inside him.

              Soon, he heard Eliot’s soft snoring, so he rolled over to regard him, the even rise and fall of his chest, his warm eyelashes delicately splayed on his cheeks, the gentle relaxation in his limbs. The fist within him gripped tighter and he couldn’t breathe for the strength of it.

            This, he finally decided, was the true magic. The painful magic. The idea of Fillory. The magic Margo told him he believed in. This was the saving grace when hope seemed foolish and the world seemed out of touch.

            He moved until he was tangled all around Eliot, for once not caring about the inherent differences between their bodies, and instead relishing in the sameness. He held tightly and as the candles burned down around them, he fell asleep.    

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me screaming about the Magicians and making bad jokes about it on twitter @campyalien


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